Why My Lost Days Aren't Lost Anymore

Most people that know me pretty well know that I am pretty displaced when it comes to time. I get wrapped up in many of life's little moments that I don't pay attention to the bigger numerical picture. Heck, I loathe numbers in general. But I found an interesting little program that makes it pretty hard for me to forget important dates.

Rainlendar is an interesting and free little program that sits on your desktop (put it where you want) with an active calendar as well as a To Do list and Event list. I see when I have appointments a week ahead of time (even further if I look at all the little highlighted numbers and wave my mouse over them.) So I'm a little more organized instead of needing what has become the 2 day Martin notice for particular events. Maybe putting bills on there might be a good idea to consider.

Is That Where They Got The Idea?

I'm not saying that everyone needs a new bra like the one seen above but it got me thinking that I've seen that somewhere before.

Defensive Parking

I don't think that I'll ever understand why they focus on parallel parking in driving school when in most cities people have enough problems with parking between parallel lines. You see, I discovered something on a trip to Best Buy (when I bought my iPod.) And now I'm very wary of who I park near and who drives the cars around me.

I picked up lunch on the way over to the store and figured that I'd finish eating it before I went in. A few minutes later, a little car with 3 people in it pull up in the spot to my right. The man driving the car weighed in at a good 375 lbs. (not tall and not exaggerating here, possibly more.) He opened his car door and started getting out. You probably know right now what happened. Wiggling his car between two cars didn't give him that much room to get out. A push of is body extended his car door out that extra distance to slap my passenger door like some punk. Hearing this, I turned my head to look the driver in the eyes and he wouldn't look at me, didn't apologize and hurried (waddled) into the store. Smartly, he left one of his friends waiting in the car fearing retribution. I hopped out and surveyed the damage and surprisingly there wasn't any to my door. I was still pissed. I pulled my car out of the spot and pulled into some spaces on the other side of the car. I wasn't going to wait to see how gentle he was trying to get back in.

Anyhow, I was thinking about the situation here. Sure, I could have beat him to the ground for being inconsiderate but it would have been 3 to 1. But, I now know why my friend Daniel parks his car in the most open area of the parking lot. Safety! If you have trouble getting in and out of your car, wouldn't you park in a spot where you don't have to deal with a situation like this? But then again, if you are that big, you wouldn't want to have to walk farther to get into the store. All I know is that I'm watching who I'm parking near for now on.

Hunting Elusive Discs

We've all done it before. You know you loaned out a CD to someone and you never got it back. It happens all the time except... I rarely loan out CDs. While filling up the iPod (I left 2GB for podcasts), I noticed several CDs were missing. Julian Cope's My Nation Underground, The Cure's Fascination Street, Die Warzau's Disco Rigido, Depeche Mode's Catching Up With Depeche Mode, Midnight Oil's Diesel And Dust, The Lightning Seeds' Sense and many others aren't where they should be. It's driving me batty. I am such a control freak with my music that I keep them all in their cases (except the CD changer and folder used for DJing.) Now, I have to play detective and figure out where they went. I know there are probably a few more boxes somewhere that I'm not noticing or someone did a good job of swiping them under my watch.

I've also discovered one more shocking thing when putting all my music into a little hard drive... I have 3 duplicates. I guess I missed the albums so much I re-bought them even though I had them the whole time in my CD changer. What albums? The Goo Goo Dolls' A Boy Named Goo, Hatful Of Rain: The Best Of Del Amitri and Aerosmith's Pump. Very odd batch.

Meanwhile, some holes in my collection are being filled with a great Valentine's Day sale currently going on at Super Pawn. Essentially, a majority of the albums are selling for as little at 89 cents (10% more off if you buy 5 or more.) So, I've been visiting quite a few stores and added some that I'd been missing by Guy, MC Hammer, LeVert, Jody Watley and a few others. I figure that the whole album is worth more to me as a collector while a single song download is 99 cents. I figure I'm saving some cash this way.

Oh, one last note. UB40 release their new album, What You Fighting For?, next week. I put a "listening party" up at http://www.80smusiccentral.com for anyone interested in what their newest music sounds like. I see it as a free way to try out a CD before it comes out.

Two Great Things, May They Work Great Together

I've mentioned how much Tivo has affected my life in the past. I'm a media junkie. Some people believe there are too many channels and not enough to watch, I say there is a lot to watch but just not enough time to watch it. I've also mentioned my new friend the video iPod. Well, now just like someone dipping their chocolate in someone else's peanut butter, the two great products now will be working together. Tivo has announced that their Tivo to Go program (which allowed you to take a program that you recorded on your Tivo Series 2 machine and send it to your computer) will now allow a new as-yet-unnamed program to compress that into a video that is playable on your iPod. Why pay $1.99 to download a program if you have already recorded it on your Tivo? That's CD and DVD money they are taking from me.

There are some skeptics to this idea. They believe that the people that own the Tivo Series 2 to be a very small market and that this only devalues Tivo. I believe this shows that Tivo is trying to expand its connectivity and make it easier for you to see and or take your entertainment where you need it. One of the biggest sales markets of Tivo was the deal they had with DirecTV, which is still ongoing but DirecTV did come up with their own DVR that they want to get out there. So, the best way to counteract copycats in the marketplace is to create a better product and hope to make it profitable is expand upon what it can do. You allow it to enter areas of the market that others aren't touching and can't touch without getting more expensive.

Previously, Tivo used their Tivo to Go manager to allow someone using DVD burning software to allow you to take DVDs of your television programs with you. I had issues with it as it had codec issues (video and audio formatting.) If you have other codecs installed on your system, it fails. There are tons of codecs out there: DIVX, FFDShow, MPEG-4 video, QuickTime, Matroska, OGG, AVI... too many to really continue listing. One has to be installed to play each of these. I'm not willing to disable my computer to enable my DVD burner let alone my iPod. It just isn't going to happen. So it should be interesting. Here's hoping that they found a way around this issue because I'll be taking my shows with me to work to watch during my lunch hour.

Over-analyzing The Interview

Remember when I told you that I changed my hours at work and days off (7am-3pm Mon/Tues for 5pm-1am Fri/Sat) to ready myself for the possibility of moving on to another career? Well, I got a call on Friday from my prospective employer. My interview is scheduled for today (yes, I'll get enough sleep) at noon.

I'm purposely only applying to work for this particular company before investigating any other for the following reasons:

1. They are busy people and have lots of clients which means possibly more income
2. I have a very good friend and his twin brother that already are working for this company
3. The employees work from home which gives me a lot of leeway on time management
4. I believe that if I want to stay with this company beyond my 2 years of apprenticeship that I'll want to like the people I work with and have a support network

The positives that might get me the job:

1. Have friends that have already infiltrated the premises
2. Have a brother in the business that employs companies like the one I'm applying for
3. Have computer and typing skills that are necessary to perform the job
4. I deal well with people and situations. I've even been called affable before (newspaper article.)

The negatives that might leave him laughing as I walk out of the office:

1. There are tons of people with a higher education calling people like him about a position because they are limited and lucrative
2. I'm possibly too easy going and may not come across as what he wants for that position
3. Might not want to hire friends beyond the twin brothers he already has
4. May already have someone in mind for the job (who maybe he owes a favor or paid him cash under the table)

We'll see what happens. I'm off to sleep and then I'll figure out what I'll wear (which is a whole other issue... what happened to my sports coat?)

90's Albums You May Not Know

Since I've been delving into my CD collection as I fill my iPod, I've been stumbling across several of my favorites of the early 1990s. Yes, you probably haven't heard of many of them but oddly enough each of these albums are amazing with few throwaway tracks. Only one released a second album but if you stumble across oneof these, it's worth the money.

There was a girl that took tennis lessons from my father before I moved to Reno. My collection wasn't as extensive as it would be later (I didn't start collecting CDs until after 1991.) I wound up showing her a lot of different music but one day she brought in Blue Train's The Business Of Dreams and I didn't know what to think of it (I mean, look at the cover.) But after a few listens, I knew it for what it was: a well crafted and polished Pop/Rock effort. Their first single, "All I Need Is You," did land in the U.S. singles chart but the second single, "The Hardest Thing," was their final release.

After I moved to Reno, I spent a lot of time listening to the radio. There was a new "Alternative" station just starting that would play a lot of classic 80's songs mixed with a few newer artists and newer songs by Morrissey, Depeche Mode, etc... They filled my CD collection pretty quickly as they gave away CDs as the DJs made live appearances and during a weird type of bingo where you mark the time a song was played during the week and first one in would win (I think the main prize was $250 or so) but runners up (who had a life and couldn't listen all day) would win CDs. One of those winnings was The Sighs' What Goes On. The big single from the album was, "Think About Soul," and received decent airplay... but more when they came to perform in town. I went and had a great time (a few female friends of mine went ga ga over the band members.) Strong vocal harmonies, clean production with little sparks of empathetic lyrical brilliance (ok, there's some cliche' moments but you get sucked in well before you notice it.) I recently noticed they released a follow-up album, Different, in 1996 before breaking up. I might have to look for it.

Lastly but not less important are The Men. Their self-titled debut album was something I picked up in an independent record store's bargain bin. I had heard their single, "Church Of Logic, Sin & Love," several times and figured it'd be worth a less than $5 risk. I was quite right. Still a little weird for the band to be called The Men when half of them are women but maybe it's all about the dudes. It's say it is kind of Blues/Rock/Pop with a little spoken word (mainly in the single.) Several of the songs like the ballads, "I Built My House This Way," seem fresh to me every time I hear them. The closest I could come would be to say this was an American version of Crowded House with a tad more Blues. Really wish they recorded a follow-up but they disbanded after their debut.

The good thing about having all my music in my hand at any time is that I can now revisit these a bit easier. Instead of hoping someone had heard a song before when talking to someone, I can just remedy that then and there. Been planning to post something like this for awhile as proof that I'm may be fixated on the 80's but not stuck.

This Is A Job For Enya

My own obsession with committing all my music to my iPod has created major lapses in my day to day regular schedule. Sure, I want to get it done as soon as possible. I also see it sitting there waiting for me to finish as I get home from work. At this moment, I have 12,572 songs on it filling 47.02GB of space. I know I have a lot more to go but just getting it done and out of the way to enjoy will help. I thought that I'd go straight to sleep last night and not continue my trek from the second bedroom's CD changer to my bedroom computer. I now look at the clock, I wound up sleeping for close to 11 hours. Don't know how or why but I did. I'm sure I'll get my sleep schedule under control at some point. It has to happen. We're adaptable creatures, right? I have discovered that as tired as I am at work, the drive home wakes me up. I might try listening to Enya on my way home tonight to keep it from happening. One way or another, normalcy will return.

Profitable Laziness

I remember someone telling me once that the best way to make money is to create or sell a marketable consumable item. It makes sense. If you like something and use it up, you'll buy more but everyone is trying to do that. It seems that there are easier ways for someone that doesn't want to put the work into it.

Free money in Las Vegas. Sounds like a great ad, huh. But, it's true if you are a casino with no risk involved. You start by becoming an intermediary for your customers money. One way this is done is by making your customers use chips instead of money. Sure, a majority of it will be spent, but as an observer of humans in this same city many people wind up taking chips home with them because they didn't have time to cash them. Some people don't even know that they can mail those in to get their money back. So that's free money for the casino.

Another way easy money is made in Las Vegas is by giving people their change back from playing slot machines in tickets. The guise of this is that you don't have to carry a bucket of coins or get your fingers dirty (dust from all the coins rubbing each other gathers on your hands as you continually put coins in.) As mentioned above, people forget these tickets as they rush off to go to dinner or head off to their plane. By being given a representation of money, they believe they have that money. These tickets usually are void after 30 days.

In a more minimal way are the use of those machines made by CoinStar (unless represented by another company in your area) which takes your change and gives you a printed out ticket for the funds deposited. Minus a fee for the service ranging from 7% to 8.5%. Sure, it's a lot easier just throwing the coins in there but to think you are giving up almost a dime for every dollar you put in. But then again, it may be worth it if you don't want to go through the trouble of rolling your coins.

In bigger cities, there are people that will stand in line for you at the Department Of Motor Vehicles for a price. These aren't just people, these are actual companies with employees doing this. But, if time is money and you can use that time better to make yourself more money, it might be worthwhile.

Of course, there is also the big money hole... stamp collecting. The United States Postal Service creates lines of stamps with value that get put in folders to go unused and held onto in hopes that its value increases. This also happens with coins minted from the U.S. Treasury.

So, I wonder, what will be the next way to profit from lazy folks and are there any other ways you can think of that they currently do?

The Delayed Resolution

No, I'm not MIA. Things have just been a little crazy with my sleep schedule. Essentially, I've been getting home at 1:30am and having trouble calming down until... well, daylight. So then I wind up sleeping later than I like. The good thing is that I have many CDs here keeping me busy as I adjust. I have figured out my New Year's resolution. I'm going to have a better schedule which includes me going to sleep after I get back from work, waking up, going to the gym, having a light breakfast, running errands (computer work included) and then heading to work. I just need to implement it. I'm sure I'll figure it out. B) Did you set any achievable resolutions for this year?

The Eve Of '06

I have so many things to post and so little time because the year is almost over. I'll save most of it for '06 as I've been heavily distracted by the filling of my iPod (I'm up to 21GB.) I'll be working on this project for the next week, I believe. I know it's going to be a pain in the butt deleting all the extra copies of songs (they tend to put Belinda Carlisle's "Heaven Is A Place On Earth" on almost every compilation) from the collection but better to delete than miss anything. The 300 disc changer sounds very daunting but I'll figure something out after I get through my... crap, I still have a folder full of stuff I used to DJ with. Oh, well... just means that I'll have to scrutinize even more about what goes on there. Give me a month.

Anyhow, I'd like to thank all of you for spending the year with me. I've met tons of wonderful people and most of all you. It's been a year of growth for me and I hope that you also enjoyed a lot of positive changes in your year. I'm only hoping for bigger and better things next year and wishing that you all have the happiest of New Year's.

Getting Sirius About iPod

This year was pretty strong for me technologically. Starting with the new car. I've never had a new one before. So the one thing that I told myself that I'd get if I got a new vehicle was a better radio setup. I get upset that I can't listen to every football game possible when I'm driving around on a Sunday. I also think that the 80's station we are provided here repeats the top 10 from every year on the hour every hour. With these in mind, I decided that I wanted Sirius. Now, I find myself listening to the First Wave station (33), The Big 80's station, BBC Radio 1, Sirius Talk Left, Sirius Talk Right, Fox News, ESPN and sometimes I'll browse around.


The next step that I made in technology was after Christmas. I kept telling myself that I couldn't fit all my music on an iPod so it wouldn't be worth it. Then I started thinking that there would be repeat songs (I own most of the CDs that the 'best of' albums are created from so I'll just not add those and any songs that I don't deem worthy.) So, I took the $185 that I received in Best Buy gift cards and added it to the $159 that my father spent on a Shiatsu massage chair pad and heat lamp. Those put me over $300 and made it more tantalizing to purchase the 60 Gigabyte video iPod. I've filled 17 gig of it so far and have much more to add to it. I also need to go through the 300 disc changer in the other room, the crates of CDs and find a way to get into my old auto CD changer (without power it won't eject.) But, so far, I like the challenge but I'm sure all this ripping and ejecting of discs will kill my computer CD/DVD drive. But, how cool is it to be able to walk around with your whole music collection on hand? When someone says, "Who is Nitzer Ebb?" I can just pull out the iPod and show them. Should prove interesting.

So I've immersed myself in technology this year and do not see much more purchasing of it in the next year (maybe another small TV and a hi-definition Tivo... maybe.) So does technology control or do you feel we are getting better control of technology?

The Fridge Of An 80's Nut

Ok, Layla tagged me. (It was hidden between a few post as she's been pretty prolific recently.) Essentially, I need to post a photo of the inside of my refrigerator. It's pretty scary right now. I've been busy and lazy. I haven't gone in there too much recently and some things may have expired. There on one shelf are packets of jalepeno sauce from El Pollo Loco (I really like the stuff.) Steaks, burritos, Philly Steak sandwiches, TV dinners, fudge, a Christmas poppyseed cake, juice, water, beer, other alcohol and too much crap.

I don't normally tag anyone because I feel like I'm picking on someone but I'd like to see if I left any alcohol in Lloyd and Teri's refrigerator.

Christmas 2005

I had a tremendous Christmas as everything went very well. The last bits of shopping were done (a gift card, a tin of assorted popcorn and a container of mini brownies were taken care of my early on the 24th.) I actually felt like I could relax for a little bit and I did. I was smart enough this time to put my camera on top of my keys so I wouldn't forget to bring it. I wasn't so lucky on Christmas Eve. Anyhow, we had a big turnout with all but my aunt (she, her husband and daughters were at Christmas Eve) staying for the festivities. I didn't go absolutely crazy with the camera but took enough shots to capture specific moments. Ok, I really wanted to make sure that the kids got a few photos and maybe take a shot of the family here and there. So first up is the random family photo after the gifts were opened. Yes, we found room for ourselves somehow amidst the wrapping and boxes.

I messed with Olivia and Connor a little on Christmas Eve. You see, I found some little animal puppets at the store earlier that week. The little grey squirrel seemed almost realistic and I had a blast making it lick it's paws, nuzzle an arm or tickle a child. Dad played Santa Claus and stopped by a few houses to deliver a few gifts to some children with their jaws dropping as Santa remembers not only their names but a little bit about them. I really think that encapsulates the Christmas spirit to me. The wonder and amazement of they young. Sure, Connor is afraid of the man in the beard and ran right into his mother's arms crying but he warmed up to him this year, walking back towards the other kids and joining the conversation with Santa (for a little ribbing about hitting his Grandpa with a tennis ball.) No, that's not Aunt Queen Latifah in that photo but it is the twins and my mother.

Just as important was getting a picture of Beth and my niece Mia. You can never know how proud I am of my brother Matt. He's successful in every phase of his life (sure he's mentally ill like the rest of us, though.) He has married a wonderful woman and has a beautiful daughter. She hardly cries and loves being held. (I mean the baby. Ok, that could be a curse at some point... like bedtime.) She got a nap in here and there. But was and is absolutely precious.

Anyhow, I got to spend time in person and on the phone with my friends and family. I can't ask much more than that and am thankful for having the time off of work this year. I can only hope that each of you had a great holiday.

People Are Strange

Quick post. Got all my shopping and wrapping done... ok there are a few little things left but thanks to Kerry, it doen't look as ominous. I just have to pick up a few little things for some people to keep the balance. You know, gift giving to family members needs a sort of balance. What weighs heavier on most of these gifts is the fact that 3 family birthdays were missed here and there due to cancelations, my new shift, a vacation and someone living in another city. So they look like they are getting more and they are but how much more... that's where the balance thing comes in.

Anyhow, I also got tagged by Well Woman and Davydgrey for what looks to be the same offence so I'm paying my fine here:


5 Weird Things About Myself

1. For the longest time, I believed that I really could fly... well float. I don't know when this ended but I don't disbelieve that I ever did.
2. I can direct my dreams by telling myself what I want to dream about beforehand.
3. I'm an over-organizer and a packrat. My pantry is set for me to live a good 4 months. I have all the boxes from my major expensive electronic items with the idea that I can return them if I need to. My CDs are not only in alphabetical order but they are separated by 80's and non-80's with another section for greatest hits collections.
4. As a child, my bedtime prayers always included one for strength and I believe they were granted, for which I'm thankful.
5. I sleep coffin-style and without a pillow. I get headaches when I use a pillow.

The Office Of An 80's Nut

I have tons of shopping to do. I'm feeling a lot better but the mix of Thera-flu and cough medicine seems to make me sleep longer than I want. This may be good because I'm feeling a lot better but I've neglected my shopping. So, I'm going to be spending tomorrow and the last few days before the holiday doing just that. Today is also my last day of work for the year. This is going to help me get a lot of things done. I'll hopefully get that icon put on the other site, finish a few reviews and clean up quite a bit.

Speaking of cleaning up, I figured I'd rip open the veil and show the home office in the photo provided above. It really needs some organizational help. If you look carefully, there are 3 stacks of CDs near the computer that have been added to the collection over the year (there are some others in the car) and a rack full of my non-80's collection at the far right. Yes, I have too much crap. Hopefully, I'll go through the CDs and find a home for each of them (the rack or the storage boxes which I'll explain during a later post.)

If you feel very adventurous, my little orange Chinese beaver on my monitor (I figure it's Chinese because the label says he was made there) needs a name. He/she (I haven't had the heart to check) looks over all my posts, my newsletters and keeps my monitor clean (has a soft lint-attracting belly.) It's not good with spell-checking but you can't have everything.

For Rent

All of my life working as an adult, I kept telling myself that when I retire I want to go to a nice quiet community in the mid-west to play harmonica and banjo all day long. Then I saw this sign...

Now, I think I'm going to move to Cedar City, Utah, and use my Social Security checks to rent me some single girls.

Photo thanks to J.K. Hennessy

The War On Words

Yes, the media is covering it pretty well. Stores everywhere are saying "Happy Holidays" instead of "Merry Christmas." And there are times when I entirely agree that changing the names of things from Christmas tree to holiday tree is as insane as changing the Macy's Thanksgiving's Day Parade to Macy's Holiday Parade. Ok, maybe that's giving some people at the ACLU ideas.

But, I also believe in saying Happy Holidays. If you don't think that you will talk to that person until next year, you may also want to wish them a Happy New Year. I also don't know how many people reading my blog are Jewish. I'd love to wish them Happy Chanukah (had to actually look up the spelling.) Isn't it as unjust to not wish it to them but wish for everyone to say Merry Christmas? Sure, I feel we may be overly sensitive to these things and a lawsuit probably isn't too far off for being wished something that you don't want. But, if you really do want to wish well to others no matter what faith or holiday being celebrated, I feel no shame in saying Happy Holidays.

The Project That May Never End

Back some time ago, I asked a friend to take some of his favorite bands and solo artists then list his favorite song (better if it wasn't a big hit or overplayed.) I figured that this would be the best compilation that someone who only has a cursory idea of some of these artists could get. I started mine also and have decided that at some point, I'll make a CD compilation of all the tracks from my own collection. The problem that I had was that once I started it, I had trouble going back. I don't know if it was the fact that I really love a lot of music, that I keep thinking of a lot of the same bands or don't know how big that I want the list. Anyhow, I have decided to put what I started with back then in print to force myself to revisit it at some point. If it ever gets finished, I'll be pretty shocked. In no particular order:

U2 - All I Want Is You
Thelonious Monster - So What If I Did?
Buffalo Tom - Taillights Fade
Billy Joel - Honesty
The Pogues - Tuesday Morning
Jean-Paul Sartre Experience - I Like Rain
Frankie Goes To Hollywood - The Power Of Love
Paul Young - Come Back And Stay
Gene Loves Jezebel - Kiss Of Life
George Michael - One More Try
Squeeze - Last Time Forever
Duran Duran - The Chauffeur
Garth Brooks - Unanswered Prayers
Depeche Mode - I Want You Now
Ministry - Stigmata
Erasure - When I Needed You
Roger Hodgeson - Had A Dream (Sleeping With The Enemy)
Alarm - Strength
Peter Murphy - Strange Kind Of Love
Blancmange - Don't Tell Me
Bauhaus - God In An Alcove
Camouflage - Love Is A Shield
Paul McCartney - No More Lonely Nights
Stabbing Westward - What Do I Have To Do?
Candyland - Something To Somebody
Cars - Why Can't I Have You?
Julian Cope - Charlotte Anne
Cult - Edie (Ciao Baby)
Nitzer Ebb - I Give To You
Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers - You Got Lucky
Cure - Boys Don't Cry
Danzig - She Rides
Machines Of Loving Grace - Butterfly Wings
dB's - Amplifier
Adam Ant - Desperate But Not Serious
Bob Marley - Waiting In Vain
The Timelords - Doctor In The Tardis
Toad The Wet Sprocket - One Little Girl (live)
B Movie - Nowhere Girl
The Waterboys - A Girl Named Johnny
INXS - Mystify
Robyn Hitchcock - So You Think You're In Love
Randy Travis - Forever And Ever Amen
Cyndi Lauper - Money Changes Everything
Skinny Puppy - Tin Omen
ABC - King Without A Crown
The Mission UK - Tower Of Strength
Queen - Who Wants To Live Forever
Moev - In And Out
Billy Idol - Catch My Fall
Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds - Deanna
New Edition - If It Isn't Love
The Plimsouls - Oldest Story In The World
Nine Inch Nails - Ringfinger
Air Supply - Two Less Lonely People In The World
Stephen Duffy - Wednesday Jones
The Go-Go's - Head Over Heels
New Order - Touched By The Hand Of God
Vitamin Z - Burning Flame
The Scorpions - Still Loving You
Camper Van Beethoven - Come On Darkness
The Bangles - Hazy Shade Of Winter
Alison Moyet - Invisible
Mighty Mighty Bosstones - Someday I Suppose
Pet Shop Boys - Love Comes Quickly
Renegade Soundwave - Biting My Nails
Lush - For Love
Icehouse - Crazy
Beautiful South - Song For Whoever
Culture Club - Time (Clock Of The Heart)
Recoil - Electro Blues For Bukka White
Men At Work - Overkill
The Connells - Stone Cold Yesterday
Dramarama - Anything, Anything
Fields Of The Nephilim - The Harmonica Man
ZZ Top - Rough Boy
Pseudo Echo - Lies Are Nothing
Aztec Camera - Crying Scene
The Fixx - Secret Seperation
Passion Puppets - Like Dust
Def Leppard - Foolin'
Barry Manilow - Weekend In New England
Del Amitri - Always The Last To Know
Book Of Love - Witchcraft
Yaz - In My Room
Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine - Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere
Hall & Oates - She's Gone
The The - August And September
The Lightning Seeds - Pure
Information Society - Repetition
The Ramones - Pet Semetary
Soft Cell - Wave Hello, Say Goodbye
Elton John - Sorry Seems To Be The Hardest Word
Sisters Of Mercy - This Corrosion
Red Flag - Shame On The Moon
Madness - It Must Be Love
Bon Jovi - Runaway
Asia - The Smile Has Left Your Eyes
Crowded House - Into Temptation
Orchestral Manoeuvres In The Dark - Of All The Things We've Made
Rolling Stones - Undercover Of The Night
Talk Talk - Such A Shame
Jon Astley - Put This Love To The Test
Simple Minds - Alive And Kicking
The Replacements - The Ledge
Joan Jett & The Blackhearts - I Hate Myself For Loving You
Dream Academy - Ballad In 4/4
Men Without Hats - Dancing In The Moonlight
King Swamp - Blown Away
The Church - Reptile
Real Life - Burning Blue
Voice Of The Beehive - Monsters And Angels
Howard Jones - The Prisoner
Pop Will Eat Itself - There's No Love Between Us Anymore
Boom Crash Opera - Onion Skin
Elvis Presley - It's Now Or Never

... To Be Added To

Crossing Streams

main·stream

• noun - The prevailing current of thought, influence, or activity
• adjective - Representing the prevalent attitudes, values, and practices of a society or group

I've been doing a lot of thinking lately and (yes, it scares me too) I've been trying to figure out the word I have mentioned above: mainstream. You hear it often when talking about mainstream media. This of course means a magazine, Web site, newspaper, radio station, television station, cable network or book publisher that represents the prevailing current of thought. I wonder how we find that out. They either must have a license or a specialist on staff to check with to make sure they aren't straying. Maybe they check the latest polls. I wonder if that means being for prohibition, against a women's right to vote and for slave ownership were mainstream at one time.

I started thinking about this during Supreme Court Chief Justice John Roberts' recent hearings. Several claimed that Mr. Robert's views were "outside the mainstream." Which views these were, I'm unsure. Did you know that mainstream-mag.com is a Web site for advocacy and news for disability rights? Heck, I didn't know being disabled was prevalent. I do wonder though, if the people elected into office by a popular vote aren't in the 'mainstream' does that mean that people just forgot to vote, aren't old enough to vote or we have inaccurate polls deciding what prevalent ideas are.